Inspiration, ideas and information to help women build public speaking content, confidence and credibility. Denise Graveline is a Washington, DC-based speaker coach who has coached nearly 200 TEDMED and TEDx speakers--including one of 2016's most popular TED talks. She also has prepared speakers for presentations, testimony, and keynotes. She offers 1:1 coaching and group workshops in public speaking, presentation and media interview skills to both men and women.

For all those reasons, I decided to start my own list. It's not a list of the best speeches by women or by the best-known women, but of famous speeches by women. That seeming nuance allows me to include speeches from non-famous women whose words go viral, as well as prominent women whose speeches have an impact. It also allows me to demonstrate that there are plenty of well-known speeches by women, putting the lie to lists that seem to say "we couldn't find any." Over time, the Index also has become for many a teaching tool, research starting point, and collection of role models and models for various types of speeches, which delights me.

Speeches from all sorts of women and girls: The Index rule is that the speech must be famous in some way, not necessarily the speaker. I like the idea of having famous and not-so-famous speakers, so we have students, professors, prime ministers, queens, princesses, presidents, First Ladies, legislators, activists, scientists, engineers, aviators, athletes, actors, musicians, attorneys, judges, journalists, evangelists, cultural observers, comedians, performers, bankers, entrepreneurs, poets, novelists, diplomats, voters, and more. They range in age from teenagers to women in their 90s. They're transgender, lesbian, straight. black, white, Asian, Native American, Pacific Islanders, Hispanic. Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, atheist, agnostic, ministers, nuns, evangelists. Women with abilities and disabilities that are physical and mental. Conservatives and liberals and middle-of-the-road-ers. Speakers from last week, and many centuries ago--and everything in between, if it can be found.

Readers of the blog have contributed in a big way to this collection, sending tips on great or famous speeches, sharing links to video and text, translating non-English texts, contributing guest posts in the Famous Speech Friday, and, in Jennie Poppenger's case, even coming up with the series name. The Index would be poorer without your contributions.

I'm also grateful to guest Famous Speech Friday contributors Claire Duffy, Karoline Henriques, Cate Huston, John Shosky, Janice Tomich, Kate Peters, Walker Wooding, and especially regular Famous Speech Friday contributor Becky Ham. I also am grateful to the many libraries, historical collections, and archives that make it possible for me to find texts and other material. Please, eloquent women, publish your speeches so I -- and others -- can find them.